Abstract
By September 1948, at the height of ‘Operation Vittles’, there were ninety B-29 bombers at seven RAF stations and the former supply and maintenance depot at Burtonwood. The permanency of the units stationed here was in doubt in spite of their growing numbers. The Secretary of State for Air stated in the House of Commons, ‘it has not been decided how long these arrangements will continue’.1 However, when Arthur Henderson was further pressed to give an assurance that these arrangements would not continue beyond the duration of the airlift, he refused to do so. This refusal was a portent of what was to come, and by June 1953 the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Defence announced that there were 45 000 US military personnel in Britain2 — compared to some 11500 in July 1950.3
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Notes and References
Thomas K. Finletter (Chairman), Survival in the Air Age: The Presidents Air Policy Commission Report: Washington, DC, US Government Printing Office, 1948 (known as the Finletter Report), Senator Stuart Symington told the Mahon Committee in 1950 that Moscow would not have sufficient weapons to conduct an attack before 1952 (in Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder, Strategy, Politics and Defense Budgets, p. 83).
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© 1987 Simon Duke
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Duke, S. (1987). Consolidation: Part 1 1948–50. In: US Defence Bases in the United Kingdom. St Antony’s/Macmillan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18482-8_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18482-8_4
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